It's that time of year to upgrade your handset. Fortunately, consumers are spoiled for choice given the range of products designed and created to suit every personality. Gigi Onag suggests who fits what.
Today, it is standard issue for most mobile phones to come with a built-in camera, media player, mini browser, built-in games and SMS and multimedia messaging features. While conventional wisdom dictates business travellers globetrotting with the most sophisticated device on the market, there is still no one-size-fits-all gadget.
But not to worry, there will certainly always be a model to appeal and fit the needs of the moment. Leave it to those enterprising manufacturers!
In the coming months, a variety of mobile phones will be rolled out, making that buying decision even more difficult. At the end of the day, a business traveller’s choice depends on his or her personal preferences and lifestyle. Ultimately, you go with the handset that is right for you.
THE ORGANISER
For business travellers for whom staying in touch with the office is imperative, mobile devices like smartphones and PDA phones are a godsend.
For the tech-savvy and heavy-duty user on the road, the latest Curve 8320 by BlackBerry (www.blackberry.com) comes with integrated Wi-Fi connectivity, a full QWERTY keyboard and powerful multimedia features. It has all the capabilities you need in a smartphone – most importantly, support of third-party business applications.
For those out for a sleeker, more stylish smartphone, the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 virtually has all the features of the 8320 in a smaller, more compact form factor. It has email, instant messaging, quad-band and Wi-Fi support, calendar, contacts, notes, web browser, 2-megapixel camera, and media player that can create MP3 music files from CDs.
BlackBerry has become synonymous with push email. If you want to get your electronic messages hot off your office email server, then BlackBerry is the one for you.
People hankering for the familiarity of Windows can look no further than HTC (www.htc.com), whose latest Touch Phone series (based on Windows Mobile 6 Professional) is topping the best-seller charts. Not as much as a looker as the BlackBerry, the HTC nonetheless packs a lot of punch.
The second-generation HTC Touch Dual combines an intuitive touch screen and slide-out keypad within a stunning design. Everything you need is at your fingertips. With the push of your thumb, the front panel of the device slides up to reveal a handy smart-sized keyboard. If you prefer using touch, then HTC’s very own TouchFLO interface lets you quickly browse through emails, messages, music and images by using finger gestures, making navigation a breeze. It is also a 3G phone, which allows for video calls.
HTC has been releasing its Touch Phone series in short intervals, so those contemplating an HTC device might want to wait for the HTC Touch Cruise. Expected to hit Asia early this year, it is eagerly anticipated for its GPS navigation feature.
THE SHUTTERBUG
Business executives who love to take visual mementoes of their overseas trips have a natural affinity for NSeries phones by Nokia (www.nokia.com). Its N95 flagship product is currently ruling the roost for camera phones, rendering obsolete early digital cameras with less than 5 megapixels.
Check out the latest N82, which has all the bells and whistles of its predecessor like 5-megapixel and Carl Zeiss optics, except the built-in Xenon flash for sharper pictures. Record your adventures with the high-quality imaging capabilities and instantly share your experiences with one-click upload to the web with the device’s high-speed Wi-Fi connectivity.
This is the phone for the Facebook generation, allowing you to share your mobile gallery with others through emails, blogs and instant messages. With the 2GB microSD card bundled with the device, you can build up a library of 900 high-resolution photos or up to 84-minutes of high quality video on the N82.
And on your business trip abroad, N82 can help you explore and locate new places with its powerful A-GPS support and pre-installed Nokia maps.
THE AUDIOPHILE
You don’t have to wait for the iPhone to enjoy music on your mobile handset. The newly released W960i from Sony Ericsson (www.sonyericsson.com) is the latest in the line of Walkman phones that are optimised for music listening. Its distinguishing features are its touch display and 8GB memory, enough room for up to 8,000 songs which you can tag in different categories to suit an audiophile’s every mood.
Available in vinyl black, this device is no slacker in other departments. It has a pretty decent 3.2-megapixel camera for recording still pictures and streaming videos.
It is 3G-enabled (so it works for video calls) and is feature rich in the online productivity tools with email, texting and MMS features.
Worth looking out for are two other phones from the Walkman line. One of them is the W890i, which is being touted for its sleek elegance for its “as-thin-as-a-CD case” form factor.
The W380i is a thing of curiosity with its “gesture control” feature. You don’t have to touch the device to mute an incoming call or put the alarm clock on snooze.
Moving your hand above the W380i will do the trick. Designed as a clamshell and expected to be initially available in electric purple and magnetic grey, it has music buttons on the outside that lets you play, pause and skip tracks at the touch of your finger.
TO DIE FOR
It will still be a few more months before the Apple iPhone lands on Asian shores. But it is already on the wish list for gadget lovers and ordinary folks alike. Apple has become an iconic name in design and technology that it is now one of the top aspirational brands.
Reviews from the US and Europe are one in saying that iPhone delivers the innovative design features that Apple is known for. It is a full touch-screen device that puts it on a class of its own. Its clean, trim lines make the iPhone recognisable to even casual lookers.
Videos and music features are top-notched as expected. But phone features leave room for improvements. With only 2G, it makes data connection over a cell network a tad too slow. For an internet communicator device, it lacks instant messaging and voice over IP.
But no device is perfect and most of these quibbles will be resolved in later models. And all bets are off that the iPhone is poise to be a top seller in Asia. Visit www.apple.com for more information.
THE NEW HORSE
Mobile phones are helping to balance work and social lives around the world. Between work, family and social life, people are finding themselves busier than ever – and it appears that women are the better of the two sexes
when it comes to juggling multiple tasks at once.
A recent global online survey conducted by Nokia and released in November 2007 said women are better at multitasking than men with 60 percent of respondents, both men and women.
Only six percent of women believe that men are better at doing more than one thing at a time.
“People are utilising their mobile phones more than ever,” said Dom Fried-Booth, Insights Director, Devices, Nokia.
“And with all the features available on mobile phones today, including calendars, email and text messaging, people are using them for more than just making calls.
“This helps some people be more productive for work and others run the family household more smoothly.”
Of the more than 5,000 respondents across 12 countries, 79 percent consider themselves multitaskers, with 50 percent describing themselves “productive” and 31 percent “busy”.
HOW THEY MULTITASK
- 62 percent of respondents do two or three activities while talking on their mobile phone, including internet browsing and shopping.
- 75 percent of women said they prepare food and 50 percent put on makeup while using their mobile phone.
- 48 percent of the multitaskers said the call was their main focus.
- When asked what was the most fun activity to do while on their mobile phone, most said “being in bed”, although no more specifics were given.
- Multitasking while on your mobile phone can certainly lead to amusing situations – 47 percent of respondents indicated that they have sent a romantic or controversial text message to the wrong person and 56 percent of women did that.
